“… on the table stood a stuffed loon …”

Part of our collection since 1925, this Common Loon (Gavia immer) has recently become a movie star. It featured prominently in the short documentary film First Death in Nova Scotia, based on the superb poem of the same name by poet laureate Elizabeth Bishop. Did our Loon also serve as Bishop’s muse? Sadly, no. Although the unusual standing posture of the Loon fits the poem perfectly, it appears to have been captured just a little later than the childhood episode that inspired Bishop’s poem.